Directors of the seven Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) of the country will be meeting the Union Minister for Human Resource Development (HRD), Kapil Sibal, in the last week of January to chalk out a vision for the next five years for the premier management institutes.
The seven-point agenda will comprise the vision of the IIMs over the next five years, composition of the boards (the current size of the IIM boards with 25 members is considered large), performance-related incentive scheme and a common admission process that would prove more convenient for the students. The other talking points consist of better collaboration among the IIMs and guidelines to set up campuses abroad besides inducting foreign students.
“We also plan to discuss a system of incentives for the faculty for the extra things they are doing besides our thoughts on foreign students and campuses,” said an IIM director.
This meeting is in sync with the ministry’s plans of meeting the IIMs periodically to discuss their functioning and plans. “We will also talk about meeting the performance on the plan side by changing the process and resources involved to achieve the plans. Another point in the agenda is competition that the IIMs are facing from the foreign institutes that have already set up base here,” added Samir Barua, director, IIM Ahmedabad.
In October last year, Sibal said the appointment of directors and board members of the IIMs would be done through an independent collegium and asked the IIMs to draft a vision document by January 2010.
“The collegium will suggest names for appointment of the board members and the directors. The composition of the collegium will be restricted to 13 members,” the minister said earlier, asserting that there will not be any interference into the autonomy of the IIMs. It was then that the directors of the seven IIMs were asked to prepare a vision document for their respective institutes for next five years keeping in mind quality and inclusiveness.